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Louise Iles

Iron production was a particularly important precolonial African technology, with iron becoming a central component of socioeconomic life in many societies across the continent. ...
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Iron production was a particularly important precolonial African technology, with iron becoming a central component of socioeconomic life in many societies across the continent. Iron-bearing ores are much more abundant in the earth’s crust than those of copper, and in Africa, iron was recovered from these ores using the bloomery process, until the importation of European iron in the later second millennium eventually undermined local production. Although smelting was most intensively focused in regions where all the necessary components of a smelt were plentiful—iron ore, ceramic, fuel, and water—frequent occurrences of small-scale, local iron production mean that iron slag and associated remains are common finds on archaeological sites across Africa.

The archaeological remains found on iron production and iron-working sites can provide detailed information about the past processes that were undertaken at these sites, as well as the people involved with the technologies both as practitioners and consumers. A variety of analytical approaches are commonly used by archaeometallurgists to learn more about past iron technologies, particularly those methods that explore the chemistry and mineralogy of archaeological samples. By interpreting the results of these analyses in conjunction with ethnographic, historical, and experimental data, it is possible to reconstruct the techniques and ingredients that past smelters and smiths employed in their crafts, and address important questions concerning the organization of production, the acquisition of raw materials, innovations and changes in technological approach, and the environmental and social changes that accompanied these technologies.

John M. Janzen

Religion and healing are useful scholarly constructs in summarizing, consolidating, and interpreting a myriad of details from the historic African-Atlantic experience. For heuristic ...
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Religion and healing are useful scholarly constructs in summarizing, consolidating, and interpreting a myriad of details from the historic African-Atlantic experience. For heuristic purposes, religion is understood as the worldviews, rituals, and supernatural beings that represent ultimate reality; healing is the understanding of, and responses to, affliction and misfortune, and the struggle to achieve wholeness. Combining religion and healing in an overview of the African diaspora experience will consider the following: original African worlds in four regional contexts in Western and Western Central Africa (e.g., Senegambia, Upper Guinea, Southern Guinea, Kongo-Angola); the traumatic middle passage refracted in the “broken mirrors” of memory; how this memory is mixed and reinterpreted with the New World experience of slave markets, plantations, maroon settlements, and during post-slavery, post-empire times; scholarly models of continuity and transformation; and modern constructions of religion and healing.

Constance Smith

For scholars of African history, anthropology offers a number of valuable and invigorating methodological avenues, from engaging directly in ethnographic fieldwork to analyzing ...
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For scholars of African history, anthropology offers a number of valuable and invigorating methodological avenues, from engaging directly in ethnographic fieldwork to analyzing anthropological data compiled by others. Given the asymmetries of written documents and the biases of archival material for Africa, anthropological methods and sources offer a different type of access to those who, for various reasons, tend not to appear in other forms of documentary record. The materials of past ethnographic research—texts and material objects, produced and collected by anthropologists and their assistants as well as by missionaries, government officials, travelers, and others—constitute one of the largest categories of written source material. However, the contexts in which such research was conducted can present certain challenges when using these materials as sources. For example, the complex entanglements between colonial governance and the making of anthropological knowledge make it imperative for historians to be aware of the discipline’s intellectual history and how its ways of seeing and ordering have shaped portrayals of Africa’s diverse cultures.

Methodologically, historians are also experimenting with field methods that draw heavily on ethnographic techniques. The emergence of historical ethnography has developed a rich, syncretic approach, in which communities’ own relationships with, and understandings of, the past are brought to the fore. Although ethnography is known for its immersive and long-term fieldwork, elements of the technique can also be incorporated into other historical methods. This is in part a matter of approach, rather than of different source material. For example, engaging ethnographically with archives can offer different insights into issues of governance and the production of knowledge.

Veerle Linseele

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Please check back later for the full article.
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This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Please check back later for the full article.

Archaeozoology is the study of animal remains, mainly bones and other hard parts, from archaeological sites. It contributes to a more complete understanding of various aspects of human life in the past. Ideally, archaeozoologists as well as other specialists should be involved in the whole process of archaeological research projects, from their design to fieldwork and data collecting, until final reports and publication. For efficient communication and fruitful collaborations, (leading) archaeologists need to understand the basics of archaeozoological methodology and the range of questions the discipline can answer. Methods vary between archaeozoologists—not in the least concerning quantification—and it is important to be aware of these differences and their possible impact on results, when comparing data for different sites.

While the actual analyses of animal remains are done by the archaeozoologists themselves, preferably in circumstances where they have access to a comparative collection of recent animal skeletons, the excavation and collection of remains often falls under the responsibility of the archaeologists. In order to guarantee a minimal loss of information at this stage—on top of all the taphonomic processes of loss beyond our control—appropriate methods are particularly important. The use of sieves with mesh sizes of at least 2 mm is essential in order not to miss the smaller, but not less informative, animal remains. Where project leaders can furthermore play an important role is in providing good storage facilities for archaeozoological remains after excavation and after study. With the quick development of analytical methods, it can be extremely interesting to return to previously studied remains and to sample them.

Khedija Arfaoui

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Please check back later for the full article.
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This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Please check back later for the full article.

Considered as the leader of the women’s renaissance in Tunisia, Bchira Ben M’rad marked the feminist movement. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, women were hardly visible, as their lives were severely controlled by social and cultural norms. Current events taking place throughout the country had paved the way for this formidable event to take place in spite of male domination and the fact that women’s lives were controlled by Shari’a law. Cases of women suing close relatives for wrongs inflicted on them were probably the seeds of the feminism that Bchira Ben Mrad was to espouse and work for.

In those decades that marked the early 20th century, Tunisian women lived in the intimacy of their home. The men went in and out, but women had to stay home. Women’s worlds were concentrated on housework, cooking, sewing, breeding children, and reading the Qur’an. When they happened to go out, they were veiled. They were also often illiterate. Some, however, were lucky to have an open-minded father, brother, or husband and had private tutors at home. Bchira Ben Mrad (1993–1913) was one of those lucky women. She was the daughter of Salouha Belkhodja and Mohamed Salah Ben Mrad, a Hanfi Islam Sheikh. She was hardly ten years old when her mother died. A well-learned and open-minded man, her father had his four daughters tutored by the best teachers of El Zeituna who taught them “fikh” (philology), grammar, arithmetic, and Farabi’s logical reasoning and syllogism.

In 1936, set on devoting her life to women’s emancipation, she founded UMFT (Muslim Union of Tunisian Women), the first in Tunisia and the second in Africa and in the Arab world. Bchira chaired this organization until its dissolution in 1956 by Habib Bourguiba, who then founded the UNFT (The National Union of Tunisian Women), regretfully never acknowledging the work she had done. Bchira took her inspiration from the Egyptian Huda Shaaraoui and the Tunisian princess Aziza Uthmana. She used to say that women’s education was necessary for the development of a country, a statement used later on by Bourguiba. During twenty-five years of relentless fighting, Bchira spared no efforts to provide for girls’ and boys’ education.

Bchira and the other activist women who had founded other organizations had opportunities to establish contacts and acquire knowledge as well as trainings from other women they were able to meet, for example, when they attended an international Women’s Congress in Paris, the Women’s International Democratic Federation, on May 26, 1945, following which, March 8 became Women’s Day from 1946 to 1952 in spite of strong opposition from the French authorities that were ruling the country.

At independence from France in 1956, Habib Bourguiba promulgated the Code of Personal Status (CSP), establishing a fundamental principle: the equality of men and women, which was to accelerate the development of the country. However, because this initiative had been “a reform from above,” and not from a movement initiated by women, it became currently known as “state feminism.”

Bruce Maddy-Weitzman

Throughout history, North Africa’s native Berber-speaking populations have been central to the mix of political, social, cultural, and linguistic attributes that rendered the region ...
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Throughout history, North Africa’s native Berber-speaking populations have been central to the mix of political, social, cultural, and linguistic attributes that rendered the region distinct. At the dawn of the 20th century, Berbers still constituted a substantial majority of sharifian Morocco’s population, and a significant minority of French Algeria’s Muslim populace; their numbers were smaller in Ottoman Libya and smaller still in France’s Tunisian protectorate.

Nationalism began to spread in North Africa during the first decades of the 20th century. Each nationalist movement was shaped by a particular combination of factors; all of them, however, foregrounded the Arab and Islamic components of their collective identities, downplaying or ignoring the Berber ones.

Berbers actively participated in the struggles for independence in both Algeria and Morocco, often in leadership roles. This pattern would continue during the decades after independence, even as both the Algerian and Moroccan states placed supreme value on the Arabization of the educational system, and of public life in general. The state’s overall view of Berber identity was that it should be consigned to the realm of folklore.

However, even as the number of Berber speakers continued to decline, there arose a modern Berber (Amazigh) identity movement that demanded a reexamination of the underlying premises of their countries’ collective identities, one that would bring the Berber language and culture to center stage. It also demanded genuine amelioration of the dire conditions of poverty that characterized much of the rural Berber world. As ruling regimes struggled to maintain their legitimacy after a half century of independence, the Berber “question” now took on a new salience in North Africa’s increasingly contested political space.

Hilary Matfess

Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, better known as “Boko Haram,” is the most violent phenomenon of the Nigerian Fourth Republic. It is responsible not only for a regional food ...
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Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, better known as “Boko Haram,” is the most violent phenomenon of the Nigerian Fourth Republic. It is responsible not only for a regional food crisis that has devolved into famine in some areas, but also the displacement of millions and the deaths of tens of thousands of people. The insurgency in Nigeria began as a dissident religious sect’s venting of local grievances in Maiduguri, the capital of the northeastern Borno State. The movement was founded at the turn of the century by Mohammed Yusuf, a Salafist preacher notorious for his rejection of Western education and government employment.

Boko Haram only gained significant international attention in the aftermath of the 2014 abduction of more than 270 schoolgirls from their dormitory in the remote town of Chibok, but the group did not always employ such deplorable tactics. Although policymakers in capitals the world over have been eager to emphasize the group’s connections to international terrorist groups, the movement is localized and often more akin to an African insurgency than to a prototypical terrorist organization. The group’s initial years were characterized by relatively benign activities like the provision of social services, punctuated by occasional bouts of criminality that, over time, escalated into a series of targeted assassinations that provoked federal government response. A series of violent actions ultimately transformed Boko Haram from a largely nonviolent fundamentalist religious movement into the lethal and resilient force it is today, known internationally for its brutality: notably, the group’s interactions with the Nigerian security sector, categorized by indiscriminate state violence; leadership changes within the insurgency’s ranks that elevated Abubakar Shekau following Mohammed Yusuf’s execution; and regional trends in weapons flows and ideological currents.

Chris S. Duvall

Cannabis and tobacco have longstanding roles in African societies. Despite botanical and pharmacological dissimilarities, it is worthwhile to consider tobacco and cannabis together because ...
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Cannabis and tobacco have longstanding roles in African societies. Despite botanical and pharmacological dissimilarities, it is worthwhile to consider tobacco and cannabis together because they have been for centuries the most commonly and widely smoked drug plants. Cannabis, the source of marijuana and hashish, was introduced to eastern Africa from southern Asia, and dispersed widely within Africa mostly after 1500. In sub-Saharan Africa, cannabis was taken into ethnobotanies that included pipe smoking, a practice invented in Africa; in Asia, it had been consumed orally. Smoking significantly changes the drug pharmacologically, and the African innovation of smoking cannabis initiated the now-global practice. Africans developed diverse cultures of cannabis use, including Central African practices that circulated widely in the Atlantic world via slave trading. Tobacco was introduced to Africa from the Americas in the late 1500s. It gained rapid, widespread popularity, and Africans developed distinctive modes of tobacco production and use. Primary sources on these plants are predominantly from European observers, which limits historical knowledge because Europeans strongly favored tobacco and were mostly ignorant or disdainful of African cannabis uses. Both plants have for centuries been important subsistence crops. Tobacco was traded across the continent beginning in the 1600s; cannabis was less valuable but widely exchanged by the same century, and probably earlier. Both plants became cash crops under colonial regimes. Tobacco helped sustain mercantilist and slave-trade economies, became a focus of colonial and postcolonial economic development efforts, and remains economically important. Cannabis was outlawed across most of the continent by 1920. Africans resisted its prohibition, and cannabis production remains economically significant despite its continued illegality.

Liza Gijanto

Analysis of ceramics in archaeological contexts has provided a range of information regarding African history. Archaeologists have approached ceramics as a craft as well as an indicator of ...
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Analysis of ceramics in archaeological contexts has provided a range of information regarding African history. Archaeologists have approached ceramics as a craft as well as an indicator of identity and status. The Africanist focus on the technological development of ceramic manufacture and production has taken several forms. The most notable are (1) the origins of ceramic production, (2) the spread and independent invention of this technology and regional styles through typological analysis, and (3) technological change related to the identity of the producers and consumers including changing dietary practices over time. The various arguments put forth for the first production and use of ceramics in different regions of the continent are connected to the exploitation of available resources such as fish as well as the rise of agricultural production. Following the appearance and technical history of ceramics in various regions of the continent, a focus on foodways and regional cuisine has placed ceramics at the forefront of interpretation.

Joel Cabrita

Christian presence in Africa has a long and varied history. African congregations represented some of the world’s earliest churches, with lively Coptic and Orthodox communities in both ...
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Christian presence in Africa has a long and varied history. African congregations represented some of the world’s earliest churches, with lively Coptic and Orthodox communities in both North Africa and present-day Ethiopia. But wide-scale Christian expansion truly began during the proselytization efforts of the 19th-century missionary movement. Success in gaining converts was initially limited, a fact not aided by the perceived ties of missionaries to Western colonial powers. But through the translation and intermediation of a dedicated strata of African evangelists, proselytizers, and preachers, Christianity rapidly became one of the continent’s most popular faiths. The independent church movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries exemplified the determination of Christians across the continent to make the faith a local religion: throwing off white missionary control, thousands of Africans formed their own independent churches that experimented with new modes of Protestant Holiness theology. Transnational links have always been key to the development of Christianity in Africa, with connections to North American African American churches sustaining many of these independent churches. More recently, international networks have also influenced the large charismatic revivals that swept the continent from the 1970s onward. Inspired by itinerant evangelists from both North America and Europe, Africans have formed new churches that stress the “Prosperity Gospel,” deliverance from witchcraft, and the equation of “modernity” with Christianity. Underlying many of these diverse developments has been an ongoing debate regarding the intrinsically African qualities of Christianity: scholars continue to wrestle with understanding the extent and nature of indigenous versus exogenous elements that go into making Christianity—along with Islam—one of the most widely practiced religions on the African continent.